Tag Archives: Richard Exton

Jessica Bliss at the Tennessean reports on America’s new poor and focuses on one family in Nashville.LINK

When your stomach and wallet are equally empty. When your three children sleep next to your wife in a shelter. When you play piano for pennies on a downtown sidewalk. That’s when you know you are poor.

It’s a twisted realization for a family that once earned $100,000 a year, owned a BMW and never gave a second thought to a Starbucks stop or Cheesecake Factory lunches.

“Life on life’s terms,” Seth Mayer says. “It will shake you down sometimes.”

There has been a lot of press about Occupy Nashville, yet Occupy Memphis is still standing strong and their agenda is a bit different from other occupations. There is also a bit of history being revisited. LINK

Andrew Cohen has a daughter who has been involved in Occupy Wall Street. He comes from a deep family tradition of labor involvement as well as protest. He was among the marchers at Selma, Ala., during the landmark 1965 marches and voter registration campaign.

“My family has been involved in movements of one kind or another since before we emigrated,” he said. “I’ve been doing this all of my life … anytime there is a chance to get the attention of the public and get them to think about the people at the top who like to think they run things and the people at the bottom who have nothing and serve the people at the top. I like to even it out a little bit.”

Georgia congressman John Lewis visits Chattanooga. He was introduced by Sen. Andy Berke at Saturday’s event in Hamilton County. LINK

At a time when Americans are politically splintered, the Democratic Party represents an inclusive “big tent” for all comers, civil rights leader and U.S. Rep. John Lewis told activists Saturday.

“We’re black; we’re white; we’re Latino; we’re Asian-American; we’re Native American,” the five-term Atlanta congressman said at Olivet Baptist Church. “We’re one people; we’re one family; we’re one house. We all live in the same house.”

A high school student named Emily Tate from White House has some words of advice on education in a letter to the editor to the Tennessean. LINK

I am relieved that the class-size bill has been dropped, but we must not allow this subject to be dropped. Tennessee school systems are in desperate need of a change on both sides of the classroom. Students need a renewed zeal for learning. Hard work and ambition need to be encouraged in students’ homes, schools and communities. Teachers need better incentives to educate. If salaries were determined by order of importance, teaching would be one of the highest-paying careers.

How Tennessee congresspeople voted on the payroll tax in Washington. LINK

Most members of Tennessee’s congressional delegation wanted nothing to do with the tax-cut extension Congress passed Friday, arguing it adds too much to the national debt.

But two Tennessee Republicans – Reps. Stephen Fincher of Frog Jump and Chuck Fleischmann of Ooltewah – voted for the bill, which extends the 2-percentage-point payroll tax cut through the end of the year.